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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Super 8 Is Pretty Great (Hey, That Rhymed!)

Yesterday was a crazy day. My brother and I had to go on all these errands before finally sitting down for lunch and deciding to go and watch a movie. We decided on Super 8 since my brother is sort of a fan of J.J. Abrams' work and Spielberg co-produced it, so I said we'll give it a try.

I have to say that the film was pretty great. It was like E.T. but with more blood. It had a pretty good mix of romance, action and humor in it. I don't really know much about J.J.A. but I'm guessing he liked Spielberg a lot since Super 8 had a lot of Spielberg elements thrown into it.

So the film is basically about a couple of kids shooting a zombie movie, but when they witness a train crash and strange thing start happening in town with items and people disappearing, dogs running away and the military people everywhere, the kids find themselves in the middle of it all. Oh, and there's an alien. The actors did a pretty good job. The characters they played were likable and funny, also very believable. The kids really were the stars and I also liked the guy in the film developing shop who was a pothead and liked one of the kids' sister. The action scenes, especially the train crash, were pretty awesome. For the train crash scene, there were huge explosions, loud noises, and crates and train parts flying everywhere for ten minutes. People who love explosions and blowing stuff up would particularly love this pants-jizzing moment. However, it made me wonder how a single pick-up truck could cause a train derailment so severe. It was also a bit unrealistic when the guy who drove the pick-up truck into the middle of the tracks and caused the crash was still alive after everything and seemed to have just a couple of scratches on his head.

"My body should be like completely obliterated right now, but whatever."

There were a couple of other minor moments that would leave you wondering if someone would really do that in real life. There were also some other things that people did that didn't really make much sense, but these were forgivable. There were subplots, and I think they were developed pretty well throughout the film. I also liked how the monster wasn't shown right away, and the viewer is left to his or her imagination before the big reveal later into the film. The alien attacks were quite scary and were definitely intense. The twist in the film will be apparent before the ending. About the ending, I didn't quite like it. Personally, I felt it was too rushed and tried too hard to be a happy, feel-good one. It was also rather cliché. However, if you try really hard, you might kind of like it.

In the end, I left the theater feeling satisfied. I recommend you stay after the end credits (it will be worth it) and please prepare yourself for an almost unhealthy amount of lens flares all throughout the film. Haha.